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Alum Success

“The material covered in LSSU's engineering program provided me a solid foundation for graduate studies. The systematic approach and communication skills needed to tackle engineering projects were taught and then practiced over and over again. In particular I appreciate the many hours spent by the faculty to develop oral presentation skills in each student. As a graduate student now, these skills have proven to be highly beneficial and, to my surprise, obviously not taught to the same extent at many other universities.”

Mark Reese, Mechanical Engineering 2005
Hawaii Natural Energy Institute
School of Ocean & Earth Science and Technology
Graduate Student, University of Hawaii at Manoa

LSSU Foundation

Life Insurance As A Gift To The University

Specifics on Insurance

There are two ways of giving a gift of life insurance to the University through the LSSU Foundation:

If you retain ownership of the policy:
Simply make the LSSU Foundation the primary, secondary or residual beneficiary of your policy. Giving all or a percent of the benefit to the University is a creative way of using a beneficiary designation as a gift.

If you transfer ownership of the policy to the LSSU Foundation:
If a donor, an insured, makes an irrevocable transfer of a life insurance policy to LSSU naming LSSU as owner-beneficiary, the policy's value is a charitable contribution in the year of transfer, and the donor removes the proceeds from his estate for federal estate tax purposes.

Value, for contribution purposes, is computed as follows:

For Single Premium Policy, which is transferred at time of issue, the single cost is deductible.

For a Paid-Up Policy (whether or not originally issued as a single premium) the deduction is "replacement cost" – that is, what the insurance company would charge on the date of the transfer to issue a similar policy.

For Whole Life Policies on which future payments are payable – the deduction amounts to approximately the cash surrender value of the policy.

For In-Force and New Policies, the annual premium, paid to the LSSU Foundation, is a charitable contribution and may be a deduction on the donor's income tax return in the year in which it is paid.

State regulations governing the deductibility of gifts of life insurance vary. Federal and state rules, regulations, and laws change frequently so please consult your advisors.

It is important that you contact your insurance professionals, your tax advisors and the LSSU Foundation before making any transfers or insurance gifts to the University.

Hands-on Training...

Brian Applegate

LSSU's dedicated three-story fire lab made all the difference to Brian Applegate. "Our certification training classes offered real situations," Brian says. Students practice victim search techniques while controlling and extinguishing fires. Applegate says his favorite exercise was the live fire flashover simulation. "We saw how fires evolved as they burned," he says. "It’s as close as you can get to the real thing." [ more ]